Writing.Com provides the tools for transferring a wide range of items from one member to another, including transferring a Group. Currently, the only way a Group Leader can withdraw his or her leadership is to either delete the Group, or transfer the Group to another eligible member. This document details the procedures that a leader must follow to complete a transfer without problems.

A Group may consist of solely the Group item itself, or a number of other items may be associated with the group, such as a Message Forum, Static items, etc. Items may only reside in a member's portfolio--they cannot belong to the group, per se. Usually the Group's items are kept in the leader's portfolio. A Folder may be used to keep all items related to a Group together in one place.

The leader must determine which of the group's assets must be transferred in order to effect a complete and viable transfer, and to whom the transfer will be made. If the leader is just stepping down from leadership duties and will still remain part of the Group, all of the group's assets may not need to be transferred. Only the Group item itself must be transferred to effect a leadership change.

Transfer the Group's Items In the left navigation menu, click on Portfolio/Transfer an Item. Follow the instructions provided. Only one item may be transferred at a time, and the transfer of each item costs 1,000 Gift points. For complete information, please read "Transfer an Item To Another Member" .

Receiving the Transferred Group Items
First, the receiving member must perform one final step in order to activate his or her ownership of the Group. They'll need to visit the Group page, open the Group Tools menu, and click the Reset Yourself to Group Leader link that appears. Once that process is complete, the link will disappear and the group will be "back to normal." If this step is not completed, they will not be able to edit the Group item.

Second, the new leader must change the Private access restrictions on each transferred item to whatever access level is deemed appropriate.

Third, housing all the group's assets in one folder named for the group makes it easy to find and manage the group. The new leader must create their own Folder item; Folder items cannot be transferred. If desired, the content of the Body text box of the old Folder item can be emailed to the new Group owner, who can then use the Forward Email form to retrieve the edit copy of the Body text and copy/paste it to their own Folder edit page.

Creating A Group Succession Plan

If you would like to create a plan by which your Group can automatically be transferred to another member in the event of the Group Leader's unanticipated/extended absence from the site, follow these simple steps:

The Group Leader must create an item in his or her portfolio which cannot be edited by anyone else. The Group Leader can make the item accessible by PassKey or Group Access Restrictions, but must not allow Group Edit Access. Writing.Com Staff need to know that this item came directly from the original Group Leader and was not edited or modified by anybody!

Copy and Paste the following text into that item:

As the Group Leader of {item:}, a Writing.Com group, I hereby authorize Writing.Com to transfer this group and any group items specifically listed below from my portfolio to the portfolio of an heir listed below in the event that my last login date to Writing.Com exceeds [X] months. I hereby waive all of my rights in and to this group and the group items specifically listed below, and as the owner of those items, I hereby approve their transfer to the following heirs, in the following order of priority:

HEIR(S):

1. {user:}

ADDITIONAL ITEMS (IF ANY):

{item:}

Please fill in the Group's item number where indicated, as well as a number of months in place of [X]. Below the paragraph, please fill in the usernames of Writing.Com members who will inherit the group in the event that you have not logged in for the preset amount of time. Below the heirs, fill in the item ID numbers of any additional group-related items you consent to have transferred (Forums, Static items, Documents, Images, etc.).

HINT: If you don't want to worry about maintaining an ever-changing list of items, keep all the group-related items you want to transfer in a Folder and list that Folder in this Group Succession Plan item.

Save the item in your port (preferably with an easy-to-reference title like "Group Succession Plan for [Group Name]" or "[Group Name] Heirs" or something like that).

NOTE: Writing.Com Staff and Moderators are not responsible for monitoring the terms of these Group Succession Plans. It is up to other Writing.Com users, group members, etc. to notify the Staff that the conditions for a group transfer have been met, at which point Writing.Com Staff will carry out the wishes of the original Group Leader as outlined in the created item. If the Group Succession Plan document is at all unclear or of questionable authenticity, Writing.Com reserves the right to decline to transfer the group from the original Group Leader's portfolio.1